Govt land can’t have tenants: Rane’s twist to Mayem evacuee property issue
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 15 March 2016 18:25 IST
Opposition leader Pratapsing Rane today suddenly gave a different twist to the Mayem evacuee property issue, stating that the government land cannot have tenants.
The Bharatiya Janata Party government has brought a new legislation in 2014, called Goa Abolition of Proprietorship Act, to resolve the long pending issue of Mayem villagers.
This act had transferred the ownership of evacuee property of Mayem from the Custodian to the Government, so that tenants and mundkars could be the owners of the land they are tilling and living in.
However, after two years, Rane today raised an objection to the Act, stating that government land cannot have tenants or mundkars, thus it is not possible to make them owners of the land.
Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar asked why Rane had not raised this issue when the bill was passed two years ago.
He also charged that Rane is raising the issue in order to keep the whole process of transferring ownership rights of the land to the tenants and mundkars.
The former chief minister however kept on saying that the Evacuee Properties Act he had brought in 1989 was meant to give ownership rights to the tenants and mundkars, not the existing act.
Parsekar countered the argument, asking why the people of Mayem then had to come on the roads demanding ownership rights and why the land ownership was not given to the people for the last 27 years.
He also informed the House that the Collectorate had surveyed around 1600 houses of Mayem while land survey is also being undertaken.
“The North Goa Collector would examine these reports and handing over ownership sanads to the people would be completed before the term of his government ends”, said the CM.
